Selecta Biosciences Stock: Mind the Dilution

Anyone who remembers the days of Flamel and Sky Pharma knows that the promise of nano drug delivery never really panned out for retail investors. These two firms promised to transform healthcare by using nanotechnology to deliver drugs more effectively. The technology moved on, while the supposed pioneers didn’t. The first nanotechnology-based cancer drugs to pass regulatory scrutiny were Doxil by Johnson and ABRAXANE by Bristol Myers Squibb, both of which were followed by a dozen more nano-enabled therapies for cancer alone. If you’re a firm that’s created a nanotechnology drug delivery platform, you’re not alone.

That brings us to Selecta Biosciences (SELB), a company we last looked at nine years ago prior to their initial public offering (IPO) which debuted in 2016 and raised $70 million. Since then, shares have lost 89% of their value giving the company a current market cap of around $229 million. That dismal performance doesn’t seem to match their consistent quarterly revenue growth.